Night Owl is a 7% abv and 42 IBU stout that has been infused with Phil & Sebastian’s Kabingara AA Kenyan coffee using a unique process similar to the French press method of brewing coffee. As described in a blog post about the process:

Historically, coffee beers have been made in a number of ways: by adding ground coffee to the boil, the mash tun, or the fermentor, or even by brewing coffee with water and then adding that solution to the fermentor. From our point of view, these methods fall short — both in theory and in results — of an ideal extraction. The boil kettle is too hot, the mash tun is not hot enough, and the fermentor is way too cold. By brewing coffee with water, you end up either watering down the beer or not adding sufficient coffee flavour.

To ensure we achieved a proper extraction and brew strength, we approached the problem as if we were making a massive cup of coffee — only using beer instead of water. We used a brew ratio of 17:1 by weight, which ended up being 180 lbs of coffee! We infused the sweet, unfermented beer (called wort at this stage) with the coffee after the boil, but before it was chilled down to room temperature to ferment, allowing us to extract at an optimal temperature.

Night Owl was officially launched yesterday (April 22nd) at the Mission location of Phil & Sebastian (2207 4th Street SW, Calgary), where it will remain on tap exclusively until May 1st. It will then be available at the Calgary International Beerfest on May 2nd & 3rd, and the Edmonton Craft Beer Festival on June 6th & 7th.